Monday, February 26, 2007

In Honor of the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The real reason why spring is the best time of year has nothing to do with pitchers and catchers reporting or the fact that college atheletes play through a tournament while schools and television networks make a fortune off of their talents. (And who says slavery is dead?)

No, the real reason why spring rocks---- Hockey. There is 20 games left in the NHL season and playoff positioning is in full gear.

To honor this wonderful time, here is a clip-- a rare clip from Salon.com. This clips shows just how hockey players would dominate other sports.

"Clark the Canadian Hockey Goalie"

Update: the link is now working, though you will need to scroll down. Maybe this clip will work.


3 comments:

harrogate said...

Solon, is everything straight with your link? Harrogate can't open it.

Nice diss of the NCAA Tournament, Harrogate almost spit his coffee onto the screen when he saw the slavery reference. Thou openst a can of worms there, mon frere.

Anyway, let us indeed talk a little Hockey. What Harrogate wants to know is, and he knows of no greater authority on this question than thyself:

what the hell is the deal between the Sabres and Senators, anyway?

solon said...

Harrogate-

The bad blood between the Sabres and Sens stems from last year's playoff loss by the Sens at the hands of the Sabres. All season long, the Senators have had something to prove against the Sabres. The Sens won the season series (5 games to 3) and won the season series last season, though the Senators have yet to beat the Sabres in the playoffs. Last year, the Senators managed to get out of the first round of the playoffs (a rarity) but the Sabres spanked them in the second round.

In Thursday game, Chril Neil hit Chris Drury with a questionable late hit. Drury shot the puck but had "his head down" which means, according to hockey fans who like violence instead of skill, was in position to get hit, regardless of whether or not the player receiving the hit was in position to take the hit or would suffer any major damage. (Drury received over 20 stitches and is out with concussion like symptons). One of the Sabres players, Drew Stafford, immediate challenged Neil to a fight and, a fight occurred.

On the next shift, the Senators coach sent out his "skill players" while the Sabres sent out their "enforces." The enforces attacked the skill players-- breaking one of hockey's unwritten rules whereby an enforcer cannot attack a skill player, even though Neil, an enforcer, took out Drury, a skill player. Since the league refuses to protect players and refuses to eliminate shots to the head, the players have to regulate this and they regulate it with cheap shots, which causes more violence, which the league prefers because it attracks fans.

The game turned into a circus when the goalies fought, which was further complicated when one of the Sabres enforces beat up the goalie for the Senators.At this point, the game was no longer hockey and shows that the season is just a tad too long. This type of action rarely happens in the playoffs.

Hopefully, this should be the end of it. The Sabres and Senators will not play for the remainder of the season and who knows if they will meet in the playoffs.

harrogate said...

Quote of the clip: "My groin has never felt better."

Now THERE'S an accolade! Imagine in the realm of academia, someone reviews a book, and in the last line instead of saying something like:

"this book contributes greatly to currently prevalent discourses about the discursive nature of discourse"

the reviewer instead declared:

"after reading this book my groin has neve felt better."